Civil war fought between the Mussolini regime and Allied-aligned anti-fascists
Italian Civil War
Part of the Italian Campaign in World War II
Clockwise from top left: Italian partisans in Ossola; National Republican Army troops inspected by Kurt Mälzer; Royal Italian parachutists en route to the drop zone of Operation Herring; the dead body of Benito Mussolini, Claretta Petacci and other executed fascists on display in Milan.
Date
8 September 1943 – 2 May 1945 (1 year, 7 months, 3 weeks and 3 days)
Location
Italy
Result
Royal Italian and Italian Resistance victory
Liberation of Italy from Nazism and Italian Fascism: end of German occupation and collapse of the collaborationist Italian Social Republic
German Army in Italy surrenders
Execution of Benito Mussolini
Belligerents
Italian Resistance Kingdom of Italy Supported by: United Kingdom United States
Italian Social Republic Supported by: Germany
Commanders and leaders
Ivanoe Bonomi
Alcide De Gasperi
Luigi Longo
Ferruccio Parri
Alfredo Pizzoni
Raffaele Cadorna Jr.
Victor Emmanuel III
Prince Umberto
Pietro Badoglio
Giovanni Messe
Benito Mussolini
Rodolfo Graziani
Renato Ricci
Alessandro Pavolini
Junio Valerio Borghese
Strength
CLN / CLNAI: 300,000–350,000[1][2]
Co-belligerent Army: 190,000–244,000[3]
Total: c. 545,000
520,000[1]
Casualties and losses
CLN / CLNAI:
35,828 killed
21,168 seriously wounded[4]
unknown captured or lightly injured
Co-belligerent Army:
5,927 killed[5]
unknown wounded, captured, and missing
RSI: 34,770 killed[6]
13,170 regular military
21,600 anti-partisan National Guards and paramilitaries
unknown wounded, captured, and missing
c. 124,000 post-armistice civilian deaths;[7] 42,600 killed by post-armistice air raids[7]
v
t
e
Italian Campaign
Invasion of Sicily
Corkscrew
Mincemeat
Barclay
Animals
Chestnut
Narcissus
Fustian
Ladbroke
Gela
Troina
Centuripe
Invasion of Italy
Baytown
Avalanche
Slapstick
Armistice with Italy
Achse
Naples
Devon
Vatican bombing
Volturno Line
Barbara Line
Bari raid
Winter Line
Bernhardt Line
Monte la Difensa
San Pietro
Moro
Ortona
Rapido
Monte Cassino
Anzio
Cisterna
Diadem
Strangle
Chesterfield
Trasimene Line
Ancona
Elba
Gothic Line
Rimini
San Marino
Gemmano
Monte Castello
Garfagnana
1945 Spring Offensive
Tombola
Bowler
Roast
Bologna
Argenta Gap
Herring
Collecchio
Trieste
Italian Civil War
The Italian Civil War (Italian: Guerra civile italiana, pronounced[ˈɡwɛrratʃiˈviːleitaˈljaːna]) was a civil war in the Kingdom of Italy fought during the Italian campaign of World War II between Italian fascists and Italian partisans (mostly politically organized in the National Liberation Committee) and, to a lesser extent, the Italian Co-belligerent Army.
Many Italian fascists were soldiers or supporters of the Italian Social Republic, a collaborationist puppet state created under the direction of Nazi Germany during its occupation of Italy. The Italian Civil War lasted from around 8 September 1943 (the date of the Armistice of Cassibile) to 2 May 1945 (date of the Surrender of Caserta). The Italian partisans and the Italian Co-belligerent Army of the Kingdom of Italy, sometimes materially supported by the Allies, simultaneously fought against the occupying Nazi German armed forces. Armed clashes between the fascist National Republican Army of the Italian Social Republic and the Italian Co-belligerent Army of the Kingdom of Italy were rare,[8] while clashes between the Italian fascists and the Italian partisans were common. There were also some internal conflicts within the partisan movement.[9] In this context, Germans, sometimes helped by Italian fascists, committed several atrocities against Italian civilians and troops.
The event that later gave rise to the Italian Civil War was the deposition and arrest of Benito Mussolini on 25 July 1943 by King Victor Emmanuel III, after which Italy signed the Armistice of Cassibile on 8 September 1943, ending its war with the Allies. However, German forces began occupying Italy immediately prior to the armistice, through Operation Achse, and then invaded and occupied Italy on a larger scale after the armistice, taking control of northern and central Italy and creating the Italian Social Republic (RSI), with Mussolini installed as leader after he was rescued by German paratroopers in the Gran Sasso raid.[10] As a result, the Italian Co-belligerent Army was created to fight against the Germans, while other Italian troops continued to fight alongside the Germans in the National Republican Army. In addition, a large Italian resistance movement started a guerrilla war against the German and Italian fascist forces.[11] The anti-fascist victory led to the execution of Mussolini, the liberation of the country from dictatorship, and the birth of the Italian Republic under the control of the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories, which was operational until the Treaty of Peace with Italy in 1947.[12]
^ abOliva 1998, p. [page needed].
^Bocca 2001, p. 493.
^"Le Divisioni Ausiliarie". Associazione Nazionale Combattenti Forze Armate Regolari Guerra di Liberazione. Retrieved 6 December 2014.
^Giuseppe Fioravanzo, La Marina dall'8 settembre 1943 alla fine del conflitto, p. 433. In 2010, the Ufficio dell'Albo d'Oro of the Italian Ministry of Defence recorded 15,197 partisans killed; however, the Ufficio dell'Albo d'Oro only considered as partisans the members of the Resistance who were civilians before joining the partisans, whereas partisans who were formerly members of the Italian armed forces (more than half those killed) were considered as members of their armed force of origin.
^Ufficio Storico dello Stato Maggiore dell'Esercito. Commissariato generale C.G.V. Ministero della Difesa – Edizioni 1986 (in Italian)
^In 2010, the Ufficio dell'Albo d'Oro recorded 13,021 RSI soldiers killed; however, the Ufficio dell'Albo d'Oro excludes from its lists of the fallen the individuals who committed war crimes. In the context of the RSI, where numerous war crimes were committed in the anti-partisan warfare, and many individuals were therefore involved in such crimes (especially GNR and Black Brigades personnel), this influences negatively the casualty count, under a statistical point of view. The "RSI Historical Foundation" (Fondazione RSI Istituto Storico) has drafted a list that lists the names of some 35,000 RSI military personnel killed in action or executed during and immediately after World War II (including the "revenge killings" that occurred at the end of the hostilities and in their immediate aftermath), including some 13,500 members of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana and Milizia Difesa Territoriale, 6,200 members of the Black Brigades, 2,800 Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana personnel, 1,000 Marina Nazionale Repubblicana personnel, 1,900 X MAS personnel, 800 soldiers of the "Monterosa" Division, 470 soldiers of the "Italia" Division, 1,500 soldiers of the "San Marco" Division, 300 soldiers of the "Littorio" Division, 350 soldiers of the "Tagliamento" Alpini Regiment, 730 soldiers of the 3rd and 8th Bersaglieri regiments, 4,000 troops of miscellaneous units of the Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano (excluding the above-mentioned Divisions and Alpini and Bersaglieri Regiments), 300 members of the Legione Autonoma Mobile "Ettore Muti", 200 members of the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani, 550 members of the Italian SS, and 170 members of the Cacciatori degli Appennini Regiment.
^ abRoma: Instituto Centrale Statistica. "Morti E Dispersi Per Cause Belliche Negli Anni 1940–45" Rome, 1957. Total number of violent civilian deaths was 153,147, including 123,119 post armistice. Air raids were responsible for 61,432 deaths, of which 42,613 were post armistice.
^Pavone 1991, p. 238.
^See for example the Porzûs massacre.
^Becker & Knipping 1986, pp. 506–507.
^See as examples the following books (in Italian): Guido Crainz, L'ombra della guerra. Il 1945, l'Italia, Donzelli, 2007 and Hans Woller, I conti con il fascismo. L'epurazione in Italia 1943 - 1948, Il Mulino, 2008.
^
INCOM Video of the Week speech by Alcide De Gasperi at the peace conference in Italian language
The ItalianCivilWar (Italian: Guerra civile italiana, pronounced [ˈɡwɛrra tʃiˈviːle itaˈljaːna]) was a civilwar in the Kingdom of Italy fought during...
Italian Americans in the CivilWar are the Italian people and people of Italian descent, living in the United States, who served and fought in the American...
simultaneously participated in the ItalianCivilWar, fighting against the Italian Fascists of the collaborationist Italian Social Republic. The Resistance...
A civilwar is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region...
The Spanish CivilWar (Spanish: Guerra Civil Española) was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalists. Republicans...
respectively, into the war, the Italian plan of forcing Britain to agree to a negotiated peace settlement was foiled. The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini...
response to the Spanish CivilWar included many non-Spaniards participating in combat and advisory positions. The governments of Italy, Germany and, to a lesser...
The American CivilWar (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civilwar in the United States between the Union ("the North")...
The Kingdom of Italy (Italian: Regno d'Italia, Italian: [ˈreɲɲo diˈtaːlja]) was a state that existed from 17 March 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia...
The ItalianWars were a series of conflicts fought between 1494 and 1559, mostly in the Italian Peninsula, but later expanding into Flanders, the Rhineland...
Nazis and rump state of the fascists, in the ItalianCivilWar, a civilwar in Italy fought during World War II. The date was chosen by convention, as it...
and the Italian Social Republic, leading to the ItalianCivilWar. The Italian Social Republic was the second and last incarnation of the Italian Fascist...
Abyssinian campaign ended, Italian intervention in the Spanish CivilWar" began. On 7 April 1939, Mussolini began the Italian invasion of Albania and within...
The Nigerian CivilWar (6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970), also known as the Biafran War, was a civilwar fought between Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra...
This list of Roman civilwars and revolts includes civilwars and organized civil disorder, revolts, and rebellions in ancient Rome (Roman Kingdom, Roman...
nazis and the fascist forces during the ItalianCivilWar. Article 1 of the Italian constitution states: ”Italy is a democratic Republic founded on labour...
The Greek CivilWar (Greek: Eμφύλιος Πόλεμος, romanized: Emfýlios Pólemos) took place from 1946 to 1949. The conflict, which erupted shortly after the...
The Ethiopian CivilWar was a civilwar in Ethiopia and present-day Eritrea, fought between the Ethiopian military junta known as the Derg and Ethiopian-Eritrean...
weakened the role of the royal house. Following the ItalianCivilWar and the Liberation of Italy from Axis troops in 1945, a popular referendum on the...
European CivilWar is a concept meant to characterize a series of 19th- and early 20th-century conflicts in Europe as segments of an overarching civilwar within...
order of King Victor Emmanuel III, provoking the ItalianCivilWar. Italy's military outside of the Italian peninsula collapsed, its occupied and annexed...